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The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of legitimacy threats on corporate incentive to obtain external carbon assurance.

The sample consists of the largest US companies that disclosed carbon emissions to CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) over the period 2010-2013. Based on legitimacy theory, firms are more likely to obtain carbon assurance when they are under greater legitimacy threat. Carbon assurance is measured using CDP data. Three proxies are identified to measure legitimacy threat related to climate change: carbon emissions intensity, firm size and leverage.

This paper finds that firms with higher levels of emissions are more likely to obtain independent assurance, and large firms show the same tendency, as they are probably under pressure from their large group of stakeholders. In sum, the findings suggest that firms with higher carbon emissions face greater threats to their legitimacy, and the adoption of carbon assurance can mitigate risks to legitimacy with enhanced credibility of carbon disclosure in stakeholders’ decision-making.

The study has some limitations. The authors have relied on CDP reports for analysis and focus on the largest companies in the US. Caution should be exercised when generalising the results to smaller firms, other countries or voluntary carbon assurance information disclosed in other communications channels.

This study provides extra insights into and an improved understanding of determinants and motivation of carbon assurance, which should be useful for policymakers to develop policies and initiatives for carbon assurance. The collective results should be useful for practicing accountants and accounting firms.

The paper investigates how legitimacy threats affect firms’ choice of external carbon assurance in the context of US, which has not been documented previously. It contributes to the understanding of legitimacy theory in the context of voluntary carbon assurance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how firm- and country-level determinants affect corporate ecological transparency.

The study utilizes multiple theories that are commonly used by corporate social responsibility studies to explain the corporate ecological transparency. Based on a sample of 243 Global 500 firms, the authors examine the impact of shareholders’ interest in ecological information, creditors’ concern, firm size, industry membership, the presence of emission trading scheme (ETS), stringency of environmental regulations on corporate ecological transparency.

The paper documents evidence that larger firms, firms in GHG-intensive sectors, and highly leveraged firms tend to produce more ecological disclosures. In addition, ecological transparency is higher in countries with an ETS and increases with more stringent environmental regulation. Finally, the authors find little evidence that shareholders of these firms are concerned with this information.

The sample is restricted to the largest firms with relevant carbon profile information. Thus, caution should be exercised when generalizing the inferences.

Sustainability has become one of the most importance topics in business agenda. Firms’ attitude and decision about the ecological transparency will affect internal firm performance, external stakeholder engagement, and policy makers’ attention. It determines the firms’ long-term operation and development.

The study contributes to the literature by utilizing multiple theories to explain ecological transparency. Each of the theories provided only a partial explanation for ecological transparency. Thus, we need to consider the firms’ behaviors from multiple dimensions. In particular, stakeholder theory and institutional theory are the dominant perspectives accounting for managers’ propensity to disclose a firm’s ecological footprint.

This study aims to examine whether good carbon performers disclose more carbon information overall than poor performers, and if yes, how firms select different types of carbon information to signal their genuine superior carbon performance.

The level of disclosure is measured based on content analysis of Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) reports. The study sample consists of 487 US companies that voluntarily participated in the CDP survey from 2011 to 2012. The authors use the t-test and multiple regression models for analyses.

The results consistently indicate that firms with better carbon performance disclose a greater amount of overall carbon information, supporting the signalling theory. In addition, in contrast to previous studies that merely consider the overall disclosure level, the authors also investigate disclosure of each major aspect of carbon activities. The results show that good carbon performers disclose more key carbon items, such as goods and services that avoid greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, external verification and carbon accounting, to signal their true type.

This study has some limitations. The authors rely on CDP reports for analysis and focus on the largest companies in the USA. Caution should be exercised when generalising the results to other countries, smaller firms or voluntary carbon information disclosed in other communications channels.

Because carbon disclosure has already been moving from a voluntary to mandatory requirement in many jurisdictions, the format and content of CDP reports might be considered for a formal standalone GHG statement. Based on the results, the authors believe that there should be industry-specific disclosure guidelines, and more disclosure should be made at the project level.

In the context of climate change, this study provides support for the signalling theory by utilising the relationship between voluntary carbon disclosure and performance. The study also provides empirical evidence on how companies may use different types of carbon information to signal their underlying carbon performance.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether competitor concentration relates to better customer acceptance of the firm’s offerings and better networking of the firm with competitors and government officials.

The research is conducted in the context of the transition economy of Vietnam, using a combination of methods. Qualitative interviews are followed by a survey of 199 small firms in Hanoi, Vietnam. Since competitor concentration is count data, Poisson regression is used to test the relationship between networking, customer acceptance, and competitor concentration.

The results show that locating in a competitor concentration area improves customer acceptance of the firm’s offerings and increases networking with competitors, while decreasing networking with government officials. Competitor concentration does not help improve firm performance.

A sample of 199 businesses in the food, furniture, and jewelry sectors in Hanoi may not be representative of all private businesses in Vietnam. The use of cross-sectional data could not establish causational relationships among variables.

Small firms in transition economies should be aware of the trade-offs between initial customer acceptance and negative consequences of being in a competitor concentrated area. Thus, once the firm’s offerings are generally accepted by customers, the firm may consider moving out of competitor concentration areas to expand and differentiate.

This paper points out that in the absence of effective market institutions, businesses want to be located near a concentration of similar firms as a means of gaining initial customer acceptance. This initial acceptance does not necessarily help firms improve business performance beyond the firm’s survival.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate differences in voluntary carbon disclosure between developing and developed countries and the role of resource availability in explaining these differences.

The authors used a sample consisting of 2,045 large firms from 15 countries and representing divergent industries that released Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) company reports in 2009. Profitability, leverage and growth were used as proxies for the degree of resource availability and the firm's participation in the CDP was used as a proxy for carbon disclosure propensity.

Consistent with the authors' predictions, the empirical results show that the carbon disclosure propensity is correlated in the right direction with resource availability proxies; this relationship is stronger in developing nations, suggesting that the shortage of resources is one reason for the lack of commitment to carbon mitigation and disclosure in these countries. The results are robust when disclosure motivation proxies are controlled for. In addition, it is shown that firms tend to disclose carbon information if their shares are owned by CDP signatories, because it allows them to be viewed as more powerful stakeholders. This finding, which enhances the validity of stakeholder theory, previously has not been documented in the literature.

The findings are relevant to the world's largest organisations, as determined by their market capitalisation. Thus, caution should be exercised to generalise the paper's inferences to small or medium‐sized organisations.

The evidence suggests that resource shortages may constrain a firm management's carbon decisions. As the regulatory environment becomes more stringent, firms, particularly those in developing countries need to take a more proactive strategy to tackle global warming challenges and balance the need to achieve financial goals and prevent carbon pollution with their limited resources.

Although prior studies typically considered external pressures that motivated voluntary environmental disclosure, the paper's results offer extra insight and suggest that resource restriction provides a complementary explanation – largely ignored in the existing literature – for variation in the carbon‐disclosure propensity of firms.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of the proposed carbon tax on the financial market return of Australian firms. It also considers the differential tax effect on individual firms with different carbon profiles, including factors such as emissions costs, carbon disclosure and climate-change policies.

Utilising the event-study method, the authors examine the market reaction to seven key carbon legislative information events that occurred from February 2011 to November 2011. The sample includes 48 different firms whose emissions-related data are available from Carbon Disclosure Project reports; thus, 336 firm-event observations are used for the cross-sectional analysis.

The paper documents evidence that the proposed tax has an overall negative impact on shareholder wealth as measured by abnormal returns. The negative impact varies across sectors, with the most significant effect found in the materials, industrial and financial sectors. It was also found that a firm’s direct carbon exposure (as measured by Scope 1 emissions) is significantly associated with abnormal returns, whereas the indirect exposure (as measured by Scope 2 emissions) is not, because Scope 2 emissions are not covered by the tax. In addition, the findings suggest that the information content of the events is more notable during the early stages of the development of the carbon tax.

The sample is restricted to the largest firms with relevant carbon profile information. Thus, caution should be exercised when generalising the inferences.

The introduction of the carbon tax was largely unexpected and most firms were unprepared for it; thus, their carbon policy appears inadequate and does not impress investors. An understanding of how the carbon tax affects shareholder value and welfare will encourage management to take proactive actions to mitigate the compliance costs of carbon legislation.

The enactment of the Australian carbon tax perhaps represents one of the biggest social and economic restructuring events in the country’s history. Our results offer initial insight into its impact and suggest that investors would penalise firms with heavy direct operational emissions. In addition, Australian corporate carbon policy seems inadequate, so does not reverse the negative effect of the tax on the value of a firm.

The effects of Pb contamination on the microstructure and shear strength of lead‐free solder joints with non‐lead containing finishes on both the PCB and terminals of 1,206 chip capacitors at different temperatures were investigated. Two kinds of lead‐free solders (Sn96.5Ag3.5 and Sn95Sb5) were selected, and different amounts of eutectic Sn‐Pb were added to these lead‐free solders according to the potential Pb contamination in a 1,206 chip capacitor solder joint. It was found that there was no difference in shear strength of solder joint at room temperature for those with or without Pb contamination, but the shear strength at 1258C for the solder joint without Pb contamination was about 15 percent higher than for those with Pb contamination.

The racial makeup of the United States' elementary school population is in flux. While much discussion addresses the shrinking White population and the growing Latinx population, less highlighted is the growing number of individuals who identify as belonging to two or more races. This group of individuals currently constitutes the youngest, fastest growing racial subgroup. According to the US Census' projections, the two or more races population will grow by 226% between 2014 and 2060, almost double the Asian population, the next fastest growing subgroup. Though individuals with multiplicity to their racial backgrounds have existed in the United States since its inception, only recently has the government provided the option for individuals to quantify their self-reported belonging to multiple races. The resulting statistics alert educators to the fact that individuals identifying as biracial and multiracial are going to be an increasingly sizable group of students requiring, as all children do, individualized care and support within school walls. In this chapter, I draw upon Black-White biracial women's elementary school recounts to help educational practitioners understand lived experiences that inform young girls' navigations of the intersections of their Blackness and Whiteness in schooling spaces.

This study elucidates the interactive relationship of sustainability assurance (SA) quality with corporate environmental sustainability performance (CESP) and firm value and explores the moderating impact of CESP on the SA quality–firm value relationship.

The sample comprises 320 firm-year observations of 40 companies listed on the Cotation Assistée en Continu (CAC 40) from 2010 to 2019. The authors use the simultaneous equations model to capture the CESP and SA quality–firm value relationship and apply the three-stage regression and generalised method of moments approaches to address possible endogeneity.

The results show that CESP, as assessed by International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) 14001 certification, has a significant positive effect on firm value, the relevance of which implies that in the case of good environmental performance, society's perception of a firm is much more favourable; consequently, the firm is likely to be rewarded with a premium value in capital markets. In addition, environmental performance has a stronger interaction with SA quality, acting as a moderator variable; thus, greater SA quality signals credibility owing to increased eco-efficiency. The authors interpret their findings within a multi-theoretical framework that draws insights from legitimacy, stakeholders and signalling theoretical perspectives.

This study contributes to the literature by re-examining the relationship between SA quality and firm value. It also provides new evidence of the moderating effect of CESP on the SA quality–firm value nexus. Specifically, this study explores the joint effects of credibility and eco-efficiency on market confidence in sustainability information. The authors use a simultaneous equation model to capture the reciprocal association between SA quality and firm value, whereas prior studies on SA quality and market performance have frequently used single-equation regression. The authors also find that CESP positively moderates the relationship between SA quality and firm value. Including CESP and exploring the moderating impact of eco-efficiency on the SA quality–firm value relationship is a novel approach.